Top Shows of 2009! part 5

Fergus Feehily : Pavilion @ The Douglas Hyde Gallery

Fergus Feehily's unconventional 'paintings' (sometimes the work has little to do with applying paint to a support) are modest and restrained. Invariably elegant, they are often based on a found object or image that is transformed by a sequence of improvisational moves or procedures.

At the heart of this new collection of works is a curious relationship between reticence and revelation: in many of the paintings the surfaces are partly obscured by sheets of plywood, both raw and coloured. Typically, their tone is reflective and withdrawn; Feehily never uses strength or bravura to communicate with the viewer. His work is nonetheless emotionally resonant; it may look like a kind of formalism, but it isn't.

Fergus Feehily is represented by Green on Red Gallery, Dublin; among the galleries where he has exhibited are NAK Aachen and Jack Hanley, San Francisco.

Jim White : Deep Fried Ephemera @ The Douglas Hyde Gallery

Jim White is a musician, known for his off-beat narrative songs that might loosely be described as 'alternative country music' (the title of one of them, 'Alabama Chrome', was borrowed for a recent Douglas Hyde Gallery publication). Following last year's exhibition of Jandek album covers, Jim White was invited to come up with an idea for a small exhibition, and he chose to put together a selection of curious and engaging oddities from the American South, including books, newspaper clippings, videos, and photographs by two friends, Joe Gillette and Wayne Sides.

Jim White gave a musical performance in the Gallery on June 26.

Magnhild Opdøl : Begining at the End of the Tale @ The Lab

Somewhere in the synapse…

ALAN BUTLER & LOLA RAYNE BOOTH

In a recent essay, the artist Paul Chan describes his memory of the 1990-91 recession in the United States. He describes how everything around him changed, causing various things to happen; adjustments to society were made and then unmade, as life began to go back to 'normal'. Comparing our ideological belief in capitalism with the Spiritual, he reminds us that the term ‘recession’ also possesses Religious associations. A ‘recessional’ being “the time after church service when the clergy departs and the people who make up the congregation are left to themselves…. The end of the service announces the beginning of another kind of time: no more commands for sacrifice and expressions of faith; no more sermons from the book of Progress”. This is a satisfying comparison, because it suggests that a recession can offer us a positive moment; a time for reflection and consideration to where we have been and what we have seen and done, before we prepare ourselves for the inevitable violent attempt to progress our cultures forward once more.

It is this ‘recessional’ space, which is an interesting factor in Magnhild Opdøl’s work. Much of her past creations operated through détournement, sampling pop culture and the equally inspirational and oppressive force that is art history, to create new original works. It can be said that successful appropriations treat all cultures (and their produce) as information and part of an ever-evolving, pre-existing language. In appropriating, the artist does not necessarily need to subvert the original materials (in fact many appropriations perpetuate the nature of their sources), but sometimes the act of sampling is like stepping out of the realm of the maker and reflecting upon the meanings and supposed ‘truths’ which are given to us by history. Sampling could be seen as a ‘recessional’ space, free from authority and cultural dogma. The process of sampling - the re-appropriation of what came before- is analytical before it is creative and constructs a nebulous distinction between producer and consumer. Similarly, a time of crisis becomes a time of opportunity.

In her new exhibition, Opdøl’s works continue to echo the past. The past is a starting point, which once analysed and considered by the artist, is built upon and exploited to create new works. A series of small pencil studies of insects are the result of an investigation into pathology. Opdøl’s recurring theme of the cycle of life and death, lead her to create dozens of intricate pencil studies of insects of which can live in human corpses. The list of insects somewhat ‘appropriated’ from the practice of pathology, reveal information about the corpse itself. The pathologist can tell how long the host body has been dead judging from how many generations of egg/insect cycles have taken place. Opdøl’s investigations consider pre-existing information and knowledge, which are themselves an analytical process using pre-existing information and knowledge. This feedback cycle created by Opdøl’s choice of subject/process echoes not only the cycles of the insects, but the cycles which take place when appropriating ideas and applying new meanings or purposes upon them. It is not just in the act of sampling - or applying that sample to a remix - that her art exists, perhaps also there is that tiny synapse between the loops and cycles where Opdøl’s creativity occurs. This synapse contains the artist’s decisions - her creativity - and cements together the physical and the conceptual; a recessional space, which is hidden between subject matter and form.

The cycle also exists in her work ‘The Great Escape’. This taxidermy piece consists of a mouse and Opdøl’s (ex-)pet cat, which has spent the last few years posthumously ‘living’ in the artist’s freezer in Norway. Thawed out and taken to the taxidermy studio, the two animals now playfully co-exist in assiduous stasis. In an uncannily outré moment, the work depicts a mouse, post-gastric, yet unscathed, escaping from the cats anus. Ready to consume once more, the rotation of the startled cat’s head greets the mouse on his rebirth as if to repeat the event once again. It is that recessional moment, mirroring Opdøl’s appropriation in her process. ‘The Great Escape’ depicts that split moment, which is neither the beginning nor end of a cycle – not life nor death, that moment that simply bridges together the two and is just part of their recurring nature. In this way, the artists who work in the area of appropriation can be seen as coprophagic, where the used, found or discarded materials, within the recessional space, become food for thought. Once appropriated, they re-enter the domain for potential remix – part of a cycle where nothing can have definite meaning and is a breeding-ground for ambiguity. Her series of exquisite pencil drawings, which accompany the sculpture, investigate a moment where a cat is tearing apart a mouse, which may or may not be dead, re-iterate this.

The work in Opdøl’s new exhibition, moves away from ubiquitous appropriations and enters meta-physical realms. These works are exercises in exploring systems and cycles of life and death and consequently allow the viewer peer into that gap between the concept and the form where her creative decisions exist. Once these decisions made, they will cause various things to happen, such as ‘meaning’ to be formulated. Regardless of what ‘meaning’ you as a viewer discover, what is revealed in the artist’s process and produce is the relentlessness of these life/death cycles. They are merely part of nature. The artist will continue to appropriate the physical and meta-physical, a life in a sort of recessional stasis; a perpetual state of crisis or opportunity, depending which way you want to look at it.

Top Shows of 2009! part 4

Ulrich Vogl : Gipfelstürmer @ Kevin Kavanagh

Ulrich Vogl is a draftsman - a draftsman however, whose aim it is to project the art of drawing into other spheres. He deploys versatile techniques in order to emancipate the medium of drawing from its traditional boundaries. His focus of the past three years has been on “drawing & light”, working with shadows, reflections and movement, such as his reverse painting on glass.

Gipfelstürmer sees the artist as mountaineer (roughly translating to ‘one who masters a peak or goal’). At such imagined heights, nature’s influence becomes clearer, the views – of mountains, clouds and sea - more lucid.

Ulrich Vogl lives and works in Berlin. He has recently been an artist in residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, where he exhibited in the Process Room.

SHANA MOULTON : WHISPERING PINES @ BROADCAST GALLERY

I’ve been so exhausted lately. I’m tired following the mundane

routines and dull obligations of every day life. I’m jaded with the

order of things. I think I‘ve begun to develop wrist tendonitis. I

need to a break – I need to retire from the world and gain some

clarity.

Those cassettes you borrowed haven’t helped at all? You really should

commit to focusing on all that is wonderful within and around you. Take

special notice of all the blessings in your life – the sky, the trees, good

friends, good food, a compliment, a helping hand, or whatever riches are

put before you!

Nothing is working. Not the cassettes, not the books. Not even this

new dietary regime.

Then I advise you visit Whispering Pines. It’s a parti-colored, hypnotic

refuge from the reality you find so exhausting. It’s an enchanted haven of

naive consumption and insulated security. It’s the zone in which your

quest for deeper meaning and higher purpose can truly begin.

So happiness will find me in Whispering Pines?

Most certainly! Once you equip yourself with the appropriate totems, you

will be secure on your journey to self-improvement. Just take a look at

Cynthia – she already lives there. Like a mystical knight in armor, Cynthia

makes her surroundings serene with instruments of new faith.

Dreamcatchers illuminated indoor fountains, healing crystals and plasma

lamps transform her residence into a soothing environment that

resonates with the sound of nature while cocooning her from the outside

world.

Wow! But, wait... why does Cynthia need protection? There seem

to be no signs of threat in Whispering Pines. Like a fairy story, it

doesn’t connect to the fears of today: there‘s no climate change,

no terrorism, no financial crisis.

The fantastic universe Cynthia inhabits is almost no different from that in

which the rest of us live. But she’s learnt the valuable lesson that

happiness and contentment are an inside job. Thaumaturgy lies within

the trinkets upon her shelf. She punctuates her solitary days with enigma

and mystery, lulling herself with esoteric theories and rituals, and

considering in depth the possibility that she may possess the Second

Sight. The outside world is as dangerous for Cynthia as it is for you or I.

After all, that is where she lost her cat.

I understand. Cynthia loves animals. And a recreative

escape has got to include a bonding to nature. I mean,

don’t the elements have a healing effect of their own?

Yes they do, and Cynthia finds healing properties in the merging of

rudimentary forces of nature like water, earth, animal, body. Every day for

Cynthia brings a new process of metamorphosis. Sometimes she

becomes so enraptured by otherworldly energy she just has to dance! It’s

in these spells of entranced ecstasy that Cynthia gains insight into the

true nature of things.

I can see that there is much that is familiar to me in Cynthia’s

videotape but still, there are moments that make me uncomfortable.

Her world seems so unreal, like the thin-walled set for TV soap.

When she dances, Cynthia disintegrates into psychedelic colours –

even her interior decor possesses an independent life of its own.

Most confusing of all is the disconnection between what I see and

what I hear. It seems Cynthia’s world is deconstructed.

Right, but temporary disorientation is a small price to pay for a

transcendental experience that is itself imbued with the powers to heal

and enhance Mind, Body and Soul. In Whispering Pines you will

experience an epiphany that will show you how to recognize the Nirvana

behind every door. You will be immersed in the kaleidoscopic spectacle of

a Magic Eye realm with rhythms to revive you. You will be furnished with

all the tools needed to achieve contentment, including explanations of the

meanings of colors, and manuals for success and Palmistry. Charlatanry

does not exist in Whispering Pines, and the Age of Aquarius – now more

affordable than ever before – will bring you infinite intelligence and

change your life forever. Overcome your fears and move to a world where

there is only joyful visuality, and remember: SAY YES TO THE UNIVERSE

- LIFE IS HUGE!

Moore /Guenther/2009

Shana Moulton @ UBU

Top Shows of 2009! (in no particular order) part 1

Brendan Earley - Ghosts of the Future @ Mother's Tankstation

Nothing can be neglected. There are no poetic objects, as opposed to others that are not. Genuine purity has nothing to do with the choice of objects but more of means: it is that which courageously faces up to the harshness and impurities of the world, and returns to the light of day having lost nothing of its whiteness. The poet has a right to all words, as the artist has a right to all imagery and the architect to all materials: their only sin would be a lack of love for some fragment of the universe.1

A pyschoanalist might take pains to point out that Brendan Earley’s art is unrelentingly optomistic, in its (near compulsive) need to fix broken things, to make things right, or to map routes through shifting spaces that are almost impossible to navigate – like abandoned cities or JG Ballard’s disused space station2. This desire to search out ‘the good in things’ is evident in the particular taxonomic passion Earley exhibits for clumsy bits of off-cut timber or discarded fragments of styrofoam packaging, which he transmutes into sculptural objects and architectronic installations of piognant delicacy. Most of us would, evidently mistakenly, overlook or find little poetry therein, but life is of course rewardingly richer when another’s passion for entropic structures shows us an alternate and ultimately happier way of seeing bits of our shared and mostly grumpy world.

Looking through an ecological eye, Earley’s work suggests that it is perhaps time to raise the standard of ‘enough’ – as in; there is enough in the world already, thank you! – by fixing things that are broken rather then throwing them away and getting new ones. An anecdotal example from Earley’s recent artistic history illustrates this point well: Earley’s exquisite temporary sculpture ‘Large Complex’, built for the Douglas Hyde project in 2008, was constructed from a flat-pack IKEA kitchen, once the exhibition was over the sculpture reverted to its former and originally intended state and was advertised in a local free paper as an ‘unassembled’ kitchen available for ‘free’ pick-up. The kitchen’s perverted natural path was properly re-aligned and now resides in service somewhere in Kildare - with just a few surprising holes, otherwise continuing its secret life as a conceptual sculpture.

This new body of work epitomizes Earley’s sensibility of weltmodesty. He employs restraint and compromise and marries it to a sense of resignation and even a slight amount of dissatisfaction and sadness, but carries on regardless with a self-evident pleasure in the application of ‘craft’ techniques for their own sake, his objects appear just happy ‘to be’, content in an engagement with the here and now. This same sentiment can be found in Earley’s large drawings, made up of thousands of strokes from black markers. Process is paramount in the overall effect of the drawing and rather than attempting to depict specific buildings, he considers them as architectural in themselves. The constant rhythm of a pen on paper renders a space not unlike that space made by a building, creating a border, a safe place.

Earley’s sculptures, installations and drawings have a nostalgic patina of botched Utopia about them, mustering a quiet critique of familiar, more heroic kinds of angular, muscular, modernist hegemony. The architectonic structures in his works are frequently informed physically by echoes of large and futuristic, or ‘visionary’ kinds of architecture, such as Michel Heizer’s ‘Complex One’, built in the Nevada desert, that which commonly alludes more to an idealized future, or even science fiction rather than the prosaic present. In comparison, Earley’s consciously impoverished and self-effacing restorative acts – reinforcing, refacing, repairing, etc…. usually employing the commonest of common building materials; reclaimed timber, styrofoam and plasterboard, return unloved, ‘unreported’ objects3, from a lost state of grace. Earley professes to worry about the future and as a hedge-bet against impeding dissastor tries to make do with the present, remaking the future out of the past, or as Fredric Jameson has put it: “…transform[ing] the present into the past of something yet to come.”

Earley cites a conversation with his former sculpture professor, Robert Morris as formative in the conception and direction of his current practice: Morris suggests that objects, which are plain and unadorned, tend to be universal and accommodating. “I asked him a question as he was going out the door. It had been on my mind all semester after some lengthy debates concerning the health of post-modernism, now that it seemed to be going the way of Modernism. “Bob, what’s next?” I asked. After a brief consideration he replied, “ Emmm, I think this is it.”

Brendan Earley studied sculpture at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin and combined media at Hunter College, New York as the recipient of a Fulbright Award. He has exhibited major installational projects at The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Void, Derry; Pallas Heights and Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin. Ghosts of the Future is his first solo show at mother’s tankstation.

1 Jean Rousselot, ‘L’Evangile selon Rainer Maira Rilke’, in Les Lettres Nouvelles, 1952

2 For this first solo show at mother’s tankstation, Brendan Earley has employed the lens of narrative, JG Ballard’s classic short story; Reports from an Unidentified Space Station. Wherein the protagonist lands on a small space station to make repairs. Although it initially appears as a station of insignificance proportion, through the course of the story it is discovered that it is actually of immense size and mutating form. Once the crew starts to explore their new home they venture further into the strange interior where spatial kinks in the architecture lead the narrator to speculate that one is really a solitary voyager, moving through vast areas of transport lounges full of stacked furniture waiting for the next crowd to disembark. The story highlights ideas of obsolescence and what has been described as the redemptive potential of out-moded practices and forms. An audio work occupies the first gallery of Earley’s installation, with Ballard’s text read aloud by the artist and theorist, Brian O’Doherty. The narrative unlocks the potential of the central work in the show, that of a sculpture which uses the very fabric of the space (apparently) to complete or fix itself, becoming new every time it is shown.

3 The acknowledgement of our relationship to consumer goods allows the real, the social and the weird to merge into sculptures that reference or employ what Ed Ruscha once described as the ‘unreported artifacts’ of the urban landscape.

Petri Ala-Maunus - There is a place in heaven for me and my kind @ Mother's Tankstation

Although Petri Ala-Maunus (born Finland 1970) is best known for his expansive production of awe-inspired sunsets rendered lovingly onto everyday objects, the keys that actually unlock his greater conceptual practice are music and popular culture incisively negotiated with satirical wit.

“Visual artist has never been my number one profession. I have always rather wanted to be a rockstar. Unfortunately I can’t sing, let alone play any instrument. I’m incompetent in music and too lazy to practise. But the sex, drugs and rock’n-roll lifestyle has always been very fascinating for me, a distant dream, which may be far from the truth. Endless tours around the world, and all you have seen in the end are hotel rooms. What a life! Still, to release a record is every boy’s dream. Like to build your own house is for every man. You have to make something of your own that will stay forever.
I’m almost 40, which means that I’m about 25 years late to start learning any instrument. That’s a fact. But a few years back I made a surprising discovery from an old c-tape of mine, a song which I have made when I was 16 years old! I used to have a guitar, which I never learned to play or even get in tune. I made this one song, just wanted to hear what my playing sounded like. This year I decided to release the only song that I have ever made. It may be my last chance to feel even a bit like a rockstar. I don’t have time to learn to play any instrument, make songs, play live, release a single or CD. I want to go straight to the top. I want to release a tribute LP so that real musicians make versions of my song!
With this record, I have a feeling that I have achieved something in my life. I don’t know any other musicians who have made only one song in their lifetime and released a tribute LP from this song. I haven’t built my own house, but at least I have released a record!
I want to thank all the invited musicians for making my dream come true. They have turned my song into some really great versions, which make this record a true tribute to one boy’s teenage dream”.

Petri Ala-Maunus (sleeve notes to the eponymous tribute vinyl LP, Oh Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, 2009)

For the past ten years Ala-Maunus has hooked himself up to metal music and painted meticulous images from his imagination. However, during this time he has also been gestating alternative subversive plans. Much of Ala-Maunus’ practice pivots around characterisations wherein he explores the potential of the melancholic lone outsider trapped within the confines of the social world. He has created a number of alter egos where he re-invents himself as a smooth, black-haired Tango King or a karaoke-singing Little Heidi.

In this new body of work, There is a place in heaven for me and my kind (made for his second mother’s tankstation exhibition), Ala-Maunus looks forward to his own past, re-inventing a new possibility for an old self. He has invited favoured metal bands to re-create – or re-invent – his one and only musical composition, Oh Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby. In addition to losing a projected self in the actualised imagined possibility of his own music, Ala-Maunus adds his passion for masked Mexican wrestling into the mix. Much of Ala-Maunus’ time is spent developing work on international studio residencies and a recent period spent in Mexico is made manifest in the remarkable canvas, Metal Paradise, painted to the scale and almost in the manner of a grand history painting. It depicts himself and ‘others of his kind’, clad in wreslting outfits and metal postures in a perfect Claudian paradise landscape. Other lost musical artistes from the real past are reconfigured by Ala-Maunus into his preferred conception of the musical present by his overprinting of their LP covers to attune them to his model metal world.